As I have mentioned, when ‘Oumuamua sped part of the way around the Sun, its trajectory deviated from what was expected based on the Sun’s gravitational force alone. There was no obvious explanation for why.

One of the most difficult lessons to impart to young scientists is that the search for the truth can run counter to the search for consensus. Indeed, truth and consensus must never be conflated.

Science is not an occupation of the elite in isolated ivory towers but an endeavor that benefits and excites all humans, irrespective of their academic backgrounds.

Sometimes, by near accident, something exceptionally rare and special crosses your path. Life turns on your seeing clearly what’s in front of you.

What stands in our way of the fair consideration of ‘Oumuamua being of extraterrestrial design isn’t the evidence or the method of its collection or the reasoning behind the hypothesis. What most immediately stands in our way is a reluctance to look past the evidence and reasoning at what should follow. Sometimes the problem lies with the message,

Long before I confronted the evidence presented by ‘Oumuamua, I had learned that across all facets of life, taking the evidence presented to you and pursuing it with wonder, humility, and determination can change everything—if, that is, you are open to the possibilities contained in the data.

while we cannot control the data that the universe provides, we can control how we go about seeking it, assessing it, and recalibrating our future scientific undertakings. The world of possibilities to which we choose to open ourselves, bounded by the evidence we collect and that we allow our collective intelligence to consider, very much

Adding all other galaxies in the observable volume of the universe increases the number of habitable planets to a zetta, or 1021—a figure greater than the number of grains of sand on all of the beaches on Earth.

Pascal’s reasoning ran as follows: If it turns out that God doesn’t exist, you have only given up a few pleasures during your lifetime. If God does exist, however, you gain heaven and with it an infinity of rewards. You also avoid the worst of all possible outcomes: an eternity in hell. In much the same way, I would argue, humanity bets its future